


L is for Legend

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1857612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb never met the legend that was Alison DiLaurentis. All he had to go on was things his friends had told him about her. But when he actually meets her face to face, he starts to doubt his perception of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L is for Legend

Her portrait had been hanging at the entrance to the school, framed in black. Caleb had never taken much notice of it until he’d seen some kid (Lucas, although they hadn’t properly met before that point) glaring at it.

“Who’s that?” he’d asked.

“Ali DiLaurentis.” Lucas had muttered. “She used to be in our class, but she disappeared right before we were due to start sophomore year. They found her body a few weeks ago, buried in her own backyard.”

“I’m sorry,” Caleb had said.

“I’m not,” Lucas had replied as he walked away. Caleb wondered briefly what had caused that reaction, then thought no more of it. Why should he even care? It wasn’t as if he knew the girl, and chances were he wouldn’t be around long enough to find out any more about her anyway. A few weeks, max, and then his foster placement would break down and he’d end up moving on somewhere else anyway, same old story.

A little later on, when he and Lucas had started developing a friendship, some kid he’d never spoken to before had asked him “What are you doing talking to Hermy?”

“Why do you call him that?” Caleb asked. “His name is Lucas.”

“He’s supposed to be a hermaphrodite. Everyone knows.”

Caleb raised his eyebrows. “And ‘everyone’ knows that how exactly?”

The kid shrugged. “Alison DiLaurentis told the whole school.”

Caleb began to see why Lucas had reacted the way he did. And as time went on, as he heard other people talking about her, he wondered why this Alison DiLaurentis was supposedly the most popular girl in school. When he’d gotten to know Paige, she’d told him how Alison had called her Pigskin. And when Jenna Marshall first approached Caleb about spying on Hanna, she didn’t go into details as to why, but she’d mentioned Alison a couple of times in connection with why she disliked that group of friends. And Hanna had told him about how she’d been known as Hefty Hanna in the ninth grade, but it had been a while afterwards that it had come out in conversation that Alison had started that. And Hanna wasn’t some kid that Alison didn’t like, like Lucas or Paige. Hanna was supposed to be one of Alison’s best friends, and yet Alison had still chosen to treat her that way.

Alison was starting to remind Caleb of an old foster sister of his, Sally. She had kept dropping her towel when she stepped out of the shower, offering herself to him on a plate, and when he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested, she’d told their foster mother that he had made a pass at her anyway. The foster mother had believed Sally’s version of events, and Caleb had found himself thrown out of that foster placement. From what he had been told, he could imagine this Alison pulling the same kind of stunt. 

Once Caleb knew the truth about A, he came to dislike the unknown Alison even more. He had no idea exactly what Alison had done to piss someone off so much that they had become this A, punishing Alison’s friends long after Alison had gone. But whatever it was that Alison had done back then that meant Hanna was still being punished now, Caleb hated her for it. He’d tried telling himself that she must have had some redeeming features, for Hanna and the others to have remained best friends with her as long as they did. But he couldn’t see what they had been from what he’d heard of her.

When Caleb heard on the news that Alison had been found alive and had returned home, he immediately thought of Hanna. Never mind the way they had left things, he wanted to go back and be there for her now in the same way that he had been when the whole A thing was going on. He needed to know that she was okay, dealing with having this...person back in her life.

He wasn’t that enthusiastic about actually meeting Alison. The whole thing reminded him of the way he had built his father up into some sort of legend in his mind all those years when he didn’t know who that was, and how Caleb hadn’t wanted to know when he first found out that his “Uncle” Jamie had been his father all along. The difference was, Caleb had known the whole time there was a possibility of some kind of relationship with his father, and more to the point, that was what he actually wanted to happen. And after they’d got past the whole thing with A and the church bell, they were getting there. Whereas with Alison, she had become built up into a legend in a negative way.

When he actually saw her for the first time, Caleb’s first thought was that she didn’t look like the monster he’d built up in his mind. Then he dismissed it. Who was he to hate on Alison, really? He could criticise her all he liked for taking off and letting her friends think she was dead for two years, but he hadn’t exactly been honest himself about the reason he left Rosewood either. If anyone knew, Caleb would end up being treated like the freak show people were treating Alison like now. And the girl had just lost her mother. There had been a time when he’d wondered if his own parents were dead, but as it turned out, he had the chance to form a relationship with them. Alison was never going to get that chance.

He’d try and forget all the negative things he’d ever thought about her, give her a clean slate. But if she ever did anything to hurt Hanna again, she would have Caleb to answer to.


End file.
